Young James Herriot

- Season 1

(2011)

In 1933 earnest young James Herriot arrives to study at the Glasgow Veterinary School and rooms with predatory,tipsy Mrs. Munro,along with fellow students,wealthy,cavalier McAloon and the fiercely feminist Whirly Tyson. James impresses one of his tutors,the modern-thinking Professor Ritchie when he correctly diagnoses a dray horse's illness. However James must learn that not all animals can be quickly cured and that sacrifices must be made to keep families together. Whirly falls foul of the reactionary Professor Gunnell,who demands her expulsion, but the apparently ...

Whirly's friend Phoebe Murdoch,a farmer's daughter due to marry herdsman Desmond,tells the students her father's cattle are ailing but Murdoch and Desmond are hostile when James suggests their illness is caused by arsenic in the feed Desmond gives them. However Whirly's analysis saves the situation,allowing the marriage to go ahead though Gunnell's ignorant intervention into the crisis, which Whirly sees as an attempt to undermine her, spurs her to spiking his drink. McAloon sees the chance to make capital from an elderly couple concerned that their pet sheep Lilian ...

Whirly faces a tribunal where she denies putting Ipecac in Gunnell's drink. Jenny Muirhead,the only other girl on the course,speaks up for her but naively lets her down though fortunately the principled Professor Ritchie acts as her advocate and ensures she is not expelled. Jenny's parents,the wealthy Lord and Lady Muirhead,give James employment at their dog kennels but James and Ritchie are appalled to find that they are Fascist supporters who have Mrs Munro's Jewish lover Oskar arrested for challenging them. Their pro-Aryan beliefs also extend to an insistence on a ...